The readings of today all point towards one of our three Lenten practices. The practice of prayer. We find Abraham in conversation with God in our first reading, and in the gospel, Jesus takes three friends up a mountain to pray. While praying, he is transfigured, and the presence of God overshadows them, along with two great OT saints. Moses …

(Adapted from a Jim Kempster, SJ, 1988 homily) I bet you all sided with Jesus! Few ever side with me. Let me ask you, “What did you learn from him (point to Jesus) about how to stand up to me?” Who am I? Let me introduce myself. Some call me Satan. Others, the devil. To you: I’m Lucifer. Did you …

Our words have power. Our words can create or destroy. Our words reveal who we are. “For from the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaks.” But there are a couple of other things in our Scriptures today that reveal who we are. The first is tribulation (“as the test of what the potter molds is in the furnace, so …

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” The Law in physics means what’s put into an action, comes right back at us in the same amount. That sounds suspiciously like the words in the Gospel, “The measure with which you measure, shall be measured out to you.” Let’s name it the law of an Echo. When we …

6th in ORD. (C-6) God’s somebodies are not ours Today we read Luke’s version of the Beatitudes. It is accompanied by the Woes, unlike Matthew’s version. A few weeks ago, I shared what happens to us when we bless and are blessed: only positive things as intended by the ones who bless. We see Jesus saying, “Blessed are you…” Take …

Our gospel begins with the crowds pressing in on Jesus to hear his word. That might cause a little dissonance in us because last Sunday, we left off with the folks in Jesus hometown ready to throw him off a cliff. Well…we skipped a few verses, where Jesus goes (away from his home) to Capernaum, and there, as he preaches …

How do we assign value to things? How do we measure a person’s worth? When I was studying in Spain, I accompanied a young couple whose fourth child had a congenital heart problem. From the moment he was born up until he was seven months old, he never left the hospital. He went through multiple surgeries fighting for his life. …

3rd in ORD. (C-8) How to be a hoper, in the midst of mopers! Have you ever been around people who always talk about the past as if it were golden in comparison to now? They tend to whine or mope around wishing it were the past. They lack joy, they sow seeds of negativity and they tend to make …

2nd in ORD. (C-6) Give me the grace to fulfill it! Tomorrow, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s holiday, happens to be the date of a president’s Inauguration every 4 years. I have been able to see various 1st time events on this day. In 1962 I was 12 when we elected the 1st Catholic President. And John F. Kennedy did …

Baptism of the Lord(C-6) Why bless the water? Years ago, while on Sabbatical in the Sangre de Cristo mountains of New Mexico, we had a speaker who showed us excerpts from the movie: “What the bleep do wee know?” There is a scene of experiments done in Japan with water. Using electrodes and screens, the scientists were able to magnify …